


break open the heavens

by stammiviktor



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale is the Only Valid Angel, Catharsis, Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Religion and Sexuality, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 16:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor
Summary: The Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate and Rogue Agent of Heaven, breaks some rules to comfort a child in need.





	break open the heavens

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to [Jenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/victuurikatsu) for your help on this one!!

Over Middle-of-Nowhere, Scotland, storm clouds are passing. Within minutes they’ll have moved on to downpour on some pasture or another, but for now they hover over a quaint rural town, filling gutters and flooding birdbaths and pooling puddles along the sidewalks that line the narrow streets. A raindrop falls on the steeple of the town’s church, wicks down down down and falls again, before splattering on the hood of a boy’s raincoat. 

He ducks inside the entrance, pushing back his hood and shaking droplets off his coat, only to dip his fingers in the shallow font before him. He touches the water to his forehead, his chest, his left shoulder, his right. The steady sound of footsteps echoes off the stone walls all the way up to the peaked roof and back down again as he walks down the center aisle and slides into the second pew from the front. The padded kneeling bench clacks as it lands on the floor. He sinks forward on his knees, clasps his hands in front of him, and tries to steady his breathing.

_ Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name… _

The words run through the boy’s mind like an automated tape, overplayed to the point of meaninglessness, but it’s the done thing, praying-wise. He’ll think of something original in a moment, after a Hail Mary or two, or ten. Then he’ll get to saying what he’s here to say. He just needs some time to gather himself after getting caught in the rain.

But even the idea of _ thinking _ about it in such a holy space makes his heart race like a runaway horse in his chest. The prescribed prayers echo through his head but he’s not paying them any mind anymore. A familiar, wretched hatred has seized him from the inside, pounding against his ribcage with bone-splintering force, hitting and hitting and hitting him. 

_ —lips, those lips, pink and chapped and warm, and that neck, lines of sinewy strength gently curved into shoulders square and— and the smile, shy and blinding, drawing him back up to those lips, those— _

This church, named after the Archangel Michael, has stood on this ground for centuries, and been frequented by the same families for just as long. One family, the Jamesons, had given birth to a smiling baby boy fifteen years ago. They’d named him Michael—a good, strong Christian name. Their family comes every Sunday for mass, but it is not often that anyone is here at two-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon. 

Michael bows his head, grits his teeth to keep from crying, and recites in his head: _ lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil, amen. _

On the other side of the altar, hidden from view by a surprisingly lovely 18th century altarpiece, is a man-shaped being in a bowtie. He’s just popped in to escape the rain, as he doesn’t like what the water does to his perfect-condition, once-hit-with-a-paintball-but-really-you’d-never-notice frock coat—nor his hair, but he’s been looking for an excuse to go back to his barber sometime soon so really that’s no problem. He’s just circling the altarpiece—such gems one can find when wandering off the beaten path!—admiring it from all angles when he spots the boy kneeling in the second pew and freezes. The poor thing looks quite startled. 

“Don’t be afraid!” 

At just that moment, the storm clouds pass and a shaft of sunlight bursts through the stained glass window above the altar, surrounding the man-shaped being in radiance that sparkles off his cream-colored coat and pale blond hair. His light eyes sparkle. 

The boy, who has attended bible school for the majority of his fifteen years and has heard the story of the Annunciation before every single Christmas, recoils in horror. He clamors to his feet, so stunned he can barely breathe. 

“Y-you’re…” he stutters, _ “Angel!” _

“Oh dear, did I forget to put them away again?”

All at once, with a pulse of blinding light, a pair of white wings appear at the bowtied man’s sides, stretching out and up almost to the rafters. The man looks back at them, frowns, and they disappear again. 

“Hm. It seems they were in right plane after all. You must be Gifted, my boy! I heard tale of some prophets, back in the day... Can you see the halo, too? I’ve always wondered.”

Michael, filled head to toe with terrible, divine awe, falls practically paralyzed onto his knees once again. It sends a shock of pain through his kneecaps, but he can’t even feel it. He stutters a desperate breath and begs.

“Forgive-me-Father-for-I-have-sinned, it-has-been-one-year-since—”

“Oh, no, none of that,” the angel interrupts with a wave of his hand. “I’m afraid that’s quite outside my jurisdiction.”

“...Forgiveness?” the boy asks, his wide eyes going wider. This must be a totally different kind of angel, then. Not the guardian kind, or the messenger kind, or the cute ones you put on a Christmas tree—just one of those vengeful agents of fire and brimstone that turn men to pillars of salt. 

_ I thought I had more time, _ the boy despairs. _ Please, God, are you listening, I want more time, I’ll do better, I’ll— _

“Oh, no, I meant confession,” the angel clarifies. “Never saw much use in it, myself. The Almighty sees everything whether you fess up to it in the confessional or not.”

The boy quakes. “What kind of angel are you, then?” he asks, sounding remarkably put-together for how he feels inside, which is decidedly the opposite, his insides turned to knotting, writhing balls of chaos and organ tissue. 

_ —lips, those lips, their warmth, the tender slide of— _

“Oh, how terribly rude of me, I haven’t even introduced myself!” The angel moves closer, away from the altar and approaching the pews. The boy cowers. “I am the Principality Aziraphale, formerly the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. And who might you be?”

“Michael,” he breathes.

“Ah. A good Christian name.”

He chokes on a morbid laugh. “Right. So you’re… you’re not an Archangel?”

“I’m afraid not, if that’s what you were hoping…”

“No! Definitely not!”

“Well good, then. Now, I’m wondering—_ can _you see the halo?”

Michael blinks. “What? No, ’m not… ‘m not _ gifted, _ or anything. Just a… lucky guess.”

“Oh bugger,” Aziraphale sighs. “I suppose I’ve made a mistake in revealing myself to you, then.”

“You’re not supposed to do that?”

“Under direct orders or very dire circumstances only, I’m afraid.”

“You’re not gonna… Men-in-Black me, or anything, are you?” As soon as the question comes out, Michael considers smacking himself. _ Men in Black? _ Really?

“Is that the one with that American actor, the one who played a prince in that television serial years ago?”

“...You know Will Smith?”

The angel waves his hand. “A dear friend of mine rather enjoys his work. _ Men in Black, _ that’s the one with the aliens, correct? Now I won’t erase your memory if you don’t want. That seems a bit over-the-top. I don’t see the harm in letting things be. I’m more of a… freelance angel nowadays. I’m ‘Being My Own Boss’, as they say.”

Michael swallows. “Right.”

“You look upset, dear boy.”

“I don’t… I just… why are you here?”

“I have some blessings to perform in the area. Rather routine, nothing to worry about.”

“I mean… _ here."_

“Oh! Well, it was raining.”

“Right.”

“And God’s house is always open to those in need of shelter.”

Michael wrings his hands. He needs to just ask, even if he’s terrified of the answer. “You’re not here… because of me?”

“I’m afraid not. But since I’m here, if it’s guidance you seek I’d be happy to help in any way I can.” There’s nothing but genuine concern in the angel’s demeanor, the way he leans forward ever so slightly and looks at Michael like he truly wants to help. It’s a pretty far cry from pillars-of-salt retribution. The boy looks down at his hands.

“You can’t help me,” he whispers. He thinks of fire and brimstone and how horribly it had hurt when he burned his finger on the oven rack a few months ago. Then he thinks of eternity.

“Perhaps not,” Aziraphale agrees. “But maybe I can lend an ear to your troubles. I have nowhere to be, but it seems like you might be in need of someone to listen.”

_ —lips, his lips, his tongue, soft and warm against my own, his chest beneath my palm, his heartbeat, mine— _

“Have you ever been to Hell?”

Aziraphale blinks once, twice, three times. “Ah,” he says as he gathers himself, then admits, “Once. Briefly.”

“Was it as bad as they say?”

Aziraphale, for a long moment, is at a loss for words. He thinks very hard before answering. “In some ways, yes. But in others… no. Not particularly.”

Michael’s shoulders slump in relief. “Oh,” is all he manages to say. His eyes burn and jaw aches. He looks away.

The angel flocks to his side almost immediately, making Michael’s muscles tense with fear. Aziraphale sits in the pew next to where he kneels, his hands hovering in midair for a moment, as if seeking to comfort before thinking better of it.

“Are you worried for a loved one?” the angel asks softly.

Michael shakes his head and the tears come loose, flooding his eyes and spilling down his face. 

The angel hesitates. “For yourself?”

The boy takes a wet, shuddering breath and wraps his arms around his stomach. 

“My dear boy,” replies the angel, sounding quite alarmed now, “whatever you’ve done, I can hardly imagine you’ll be Damned for it! You’re so young yet—”

“It’s not,” Michael gasps in air, horrified at having interrupted an angel, “not just what I’ve done.”

“No?”

He swallows miserably, hugging himself tight. “What I’ve done, what I will do again, if I… if I don’t…”

“Deep breaths, my boy.”

Michale tries, and tries again. “It’s who I am,” he finally says, finally working up the courage to look the angel in the eyes. There, he finds soul-rending vulnerability but also a strange kind of understanding, dawning on the angel’s face. It’s like he knows. Like he’s guessed.

“Oh,” says Aziraphale, familiar sadness filling him from head to toe. “I see.”

The boy, quite understandably, panics.

“I didn’t ask for this!” he exclaims, shaking his head so violently and suddenly that a tear whips off his face and lands on Aziraphale’s hand. “I, I, he just came over to do homework and we were playing Smash in the basement and we’re _ friends, _ and… I’d had _ thoughts, _ before, but that was all, I never intended—!” He chokes himself off with a sob.

There are hands on his shoulders, guiding him backwards, off his knees, to sit down on the pew. He complies, half delirious with desperation and blinded by tears. Then the hands settle warmly over one of his, smoothing his fingers out where they’ve clenched a fist in his pant leg. The angel’s fingers are warm and the contact sends a trill singing through his body, then another shock of terror. 

The angel speaks, his voice low and serious. “Did he hurt you?”

Michael shakes his head miserably. “No. No. He asked and I… I said _ yes.” _

“Oh, thank goodness.”

In shock, Michael tears his hand away from Aziraphale’s. _“Thank goodness?! _ There’s nothing good about this! I _ kissed _ him and I liked it and I didn’t want to stop and— and I thought I could just bury it, pretend I didn’t feel anything for him or for anyone else, I thought maybe I could fake it for someone or, or become a priest or something, but I’m— I’m weak, I’m so weak, forgive me, _ forgive me!” _

“Shh,” the angel says, pulling the boy into his arms and holding him close as he trembles like a man at the gallows. There’s another pulse of light as Aziraphale brings his wings onto the earthly plane to wrap around the boy. He doesn’t know why he does this, except that it feels like the right thing to do. What he would want, if it were himself trembling and forsaken and begging forgiveness.

What he would do, if it were his Crowley.

“Shh, breathe now,” he whispers, stroking down the boy’s back and leaving little heavenly touches of _ calm _ pressed up against his spine. “You’re alright, you’re perfectly alright, my dear.”

Michael hiccups against the lapel of Aziraphale’s jacket that he’s soaked through with tears. 

“Even if God can… can forgive me this one time,” he cries, “I still— I still _ want, _so badly, and I don’t know if I can change and I— I want him, God, help me I…”

The pain in Aziraphale’s chest is sharp, exquisite, and very familiar. He holds the boy close, as if he could soak this child’s pain into his celestial form and still his bone-wracking sobs. 

“Michael,” Aziraphale says, very slowly, very softly, and very carefully. The boy tenses when he hears his name. “I have lived among humans for millennia. I have seen the suffering that people like you have faced, in this country and all over the world, and I know that it’s too often in God’s name. But my dear boy, you must know, in all that time… I’ve never known a divine being to mind at all.”

Michael goes still, pulling back slightly to look up at the angel’s face. “You’ve never… They… _ What?” _

“I don’t pretend to know much about God’s plan, Michael. I haven’t spoken to Her since… oh, Eden, was it?”

Michael cocks his head. “Uh. Her?” 

Aziraphale simply waves a hand. “Him, Her, They, I don’t think the Almighty cares about the gendered peculiarities of the English language.”

“...Right. Her. Okay.”

“I don’t know Her plan, my boy. And I do not claim to, for it is Ineffable. But the God I believe in—the God whose Grace I have felt inside of myself at every moment since She first created me—is a God of Love, in all its forms. I know most human doctrine doesn’t see it that way, but She would not judge you for this. Not for who you love. _ Never.” _

Michael, out of some strange sort of self-preservation and fear he’s being toyed with, shoves down every bit of choking, disbelieving hope and scoffs.

“That’s not true.”

“It is."

“It can’t be,” the boy says. “I don’t—I don’t know how to believe you."

“You don’t have to believe me right now. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“It’s unnatural,” Michael whispers, knives stabbing through his heart even as he says the words. He’s heard them so many times from so many people, men and women that he loves and trusts, yet it hurts more to hear them coming from his own mouth, when he knows deep down that he doesn’t believe it.

The angel shakes his head. His eyes, fixed carefully on Michael’s, overflow with compassion. “I’ve been around longer than humans have existed, and I can tell you—nothing so common and harmless and beautiful could possibly be unnatural. My darling boy, She created you this way. You are _ as you should be.” _

Michael hangs his head and wrings his hands. He trembles under the weight of all the implications.

“Listen,” the angel says with a deep sigh. “I know what it means to love someone that you believe that… that your family, that _ Heaven, _ would not approve of. I know quite intimately what it is to be consumed by a love that you fear might send you straight to Hell if you choose to act upon it, but still knowing that denying that love is denying who you truly are, and denying yourself any chance of true happiness.”

“You?” the boy asks. “Really?”

“Yes. We aren’t so different, you know,” Aziraphale replies, a teasing lilt to his voice. Whether he is talking about humans and angels, or the two of them specifically, Michael has no idea.

“If love is so important to God, then why would H— She, disapprove of yours?”

The angel takes a long sigh and leans against the back of the pew. “Well, my beloved—well, you might remember him from the story of Eve and the Forbidden Fruit.”

Michael’s eyes bulge. _ “Him?” _Not so different, indeed. He doesn’t know how to process any of this.

“Or her. They’ve gone by either, through the years. English is so unneccesarily gendered, though not as bad as French, or Arabic, or Czech…”

The boy blinks. “Your beloved was _ Adam?” _

“No, no! His heart beloved to Eve, of course. Mine belongs to the Snake. You remember him? A wily thing, that serpent.”

_ “Satan?!” _

“Goodness me, no, just a demon! An angel who Fell, and has been causing mischief up here on the surface ever since."

“An angel and a demon? That’s like— like Romeo and Juliet or something.”

“Somewhat,” Aziraphale agrees. “A much happier ending, though, to the extent that you can have an ending when you’re immortal. You know, I was quite upset when dear William told me how he planned for his play to end.”

“...Okay."

“My point, dear child, is that I spent far too long afraid of what would happen if I allowed myself to love him, and for thousands of years it suffocated me. _ Thousands _ of years that I could have spent loving him up close and out loud, instead I kept myself a wing’s length away.”

The boy frowns. “What made you realize?”

“Oh, the Apocalypse, or attempted-Apocalypse anyway, which is hardly ideal,” Aziraphale explains with a wave of his hand. “Enough about me, Michael. I certainly didn’t intend to dump my whole life’s story on you! I only tell you this so you’ll know where I’m coming from when I say that I _ understand. _It was hard to get to this point where I can be myself. Where I can love freely, the way I know I was made to love.”

Michael swallows. His eyes trace the wood-grain pattern on the back of the pew in front of him, precisely the same swirl of black and brown that he studies every week in this exact spot. Next to him would be his mother and father and sister. Behind them, his grandparents, aunt, and uncle, and their kids.

“They’ll never accept me,” he whispers, knowing the angel will hear him. “I don’t want to lose them. I can’t— despite everything, I love them and I just…”

“I know,” the angel sighs. “I loved Heaven too, even as they were cruel to me for who I was. I had a lot at stake, too. We are creatures made to obey, and disobedience means that… well, that you’re no longer an angel. It’s what happened to my Crowley, and I was blinded by fear.”

There’s a familiar burning behind Michael’s eyes, but he has no more tears left in him. Exhaustion settles like a weighted blanket and a headache throbs in his temples. “They would _ hate me _ if they knew.”

Aziraphale, somehow, looks as sad and tired as Michael feels. “Maybe,” he agrees. “Or maybe not. You shouldn’t take that step until you feel ready to do so. But I also don’t want you to live in fear, or to make yourself small to fit into a version of Michael they’d accept.” He sets comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder and smiles. “You are you, and God loves you for who you are._ I _ love you for who you are. Maybe, with time, your family could learn to do the same.”

“Or maybe they won’t.” 

Aziraphale sighs. “It’s truly a horrible choice to ask someone to make.” 

“But maybe, I…” Michael thinks of those lips, those eyes, that longing that by now has become as familiar as the fists of self-hatred pounding on the inside of his ribcage. “Maybe just being myself and… and _ knowing _ that I’m loved… Maybe that can be enough.” 

It’s a cruel choice, indeed, but not as cruel as the choice he’d previously believed he faced: between suffocating himself in a façade for the rest of his life and facing an eternity of fire and brimstone and damnation with God’s love stripped from his soul. 

He won’t have to make that choice. He can love and be Loved at the same time and maybe, just maybe, he will be okay. 

The angel reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a business card, freshly manifested. “This is my address in London. I have a spare bedroom over my bookshop that I hardly ever use. I’m likely not supposed to do this, but I’ve broken enough rules in the past year as it is, so if you ever need a place to stay, if only temporarily, you know where to find me.”

The boy draws back. “I can’t take this.”

“There’s no harm, my boy. Take it, and use it if you need it, though I hope that won’t be necessary.”

“You won’t get in trouble?”

“No more trouble than I can get into for letting a demon move in.” Aziraphale purses his lips in thought. “Maybe I will have to do this more often, if this all goes over alright Upstairs. I’m quite tired of sitting back and watching people suffer, when it’s perfectly within my ability to help.”

From the inside jacket pocket, an ancient flip phone chirps a perky ringtone, some snippet of a song Michael could _ swear _ was by Queen. The angel pulls it out to reveal the name _ CROWLEY. _

“Oh dear, speak of the Devil. I should probably be getting home. We have dinner reservations later at a lovely Thai place I’ve been wanting to try.”

The most surprising thing about this conversation is not that this angel (with a bowtie and a demon boyfriend, who says it’s okay to be gay) does something as mundane and human as make reservations at restaurants. Still. It’s up there in shock value. 

_ We aren’t so different. _

Michael surges forward, hugging the angel tightly around the waist. “Thank you,” he whispers, hoping Aziraphale knows how sincerely he means it. 

The angel pats his head. “You’re most welcome. You know where to find me. Until then… I have faith in you, my dear Michael.” 

He thought he had no more tears left to cry, but maybe that was just sad tears, since there are some happy ones welling in his eyes. 

The angel pulls back and flips open the phone just before it gets sent to voicemail. “Darling? Sorry, I’m on my way back now. I should be there in time for the— oh, that’s wonderful, that’s a fantastic year. A gorgeous growing region as well, we should go for a wine tour there sometime— Yes, yes, pop it in to chill, I’ll be home in two shakes!”

With a wave goodbye, the angel disappears.

Michael stands, flexing his stiff knees, and uses the bottom of his shirt to wipe the tear tracks from his face. With his damp raincoat draped over his arm, he walks back up the aisle, crosses himself with Holy Water, and smiles.

Then he walks out into the sunlight.  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed! please let me know what you thought!!
> 
> find me on tumblr at [stammiviktor](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the hell you endure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20408239) by [thewalrus_said](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewalrus_said/pseuds/thewalrus_said)


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